Ezekiel9chapter 9

The six men who come from the upper gate carry what the text calls shattering weapons — heavy clubs or maces. A mace was a real infantry weapon, a stone or metal head on a short handle, and it was also the standard symbol of authority to execute a sentence.

The seventh man is dressed differently and equipped differently: linen clothing, and a writing case at his side. Scribes carried a palette — a slim wooden case holding reed pens, a small knife, and cakes of dried ink, slung from a belt or tucked in a sash. Egyptian tomb paintings show them exactly like this, and the Hebrew word here is a loan from Egyptian. He is an official recorder, not a soldier.

The mark he puts on foreheads is named as a letter: taw, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In the older Hebrew script of Ezekiel's day taw was written as a simple cross or X. It was the mark an illiterate man made to sign a document — the ordinary sign of ownership and agreement.

The order of operations would have shaken any priest. Begin at my sanctuary. Not begin with the worst of the population, or with the outer suburbs — begin at the holy building, and with the elders in front of it. Judgment starts where the light was brightest.